Gov. Sam Brownback's high-octane fundraiser Monday night in Topeka for benefit of 14 Republican candidates for the Kansas Senate sparked a round of condemnation among the state's Democratic Party leaders.

The Republican governor asked contributors to cut checks during a gathering at The Aviva Building for $500 or $1,000 to each of the GOP nominees. In the alternative, every lobbying organization and financially influential guest could commit to raising $7,000 or $14,000 to be divided evenly among the 14 candidates.

"It's a great opportunity to bring the Republican Party together and advocate for the Kansas way instead of the Obama way," said Sherriene Jones-Sontag, spokeswoman for the governor.

Requested amounts at the fundraiser were large by Kansas standards and could pay for an avalanche of direct-mail campaign materials prior to the November vote.

"It's power politics," said Joan Wagnon, chairwoman of the Kansas Democratic Party. "That's Brownback just saying, ‘I'm going to own these 14 people.’ ”

Before the August primary election, Brownback was criticized for helping to raise money and for endorsing candidates in his party's primary. The election resulted in defeat of a string of moderate Republican senators — targeted by Brownback — who didn't enthusiastically endorse the governor's agenda.

Brownback's participation in the general election is more typical of a governor's partisan role. His activism in these 14 races affirmed his belief the Senate should move decidedly to the right on policy.

"I just have to ask the question of the Kansas public," Wagnon said. "Are you willing to let the Kansas governor buy the elections?"

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, said Kansas lobbyists were being advised by representatives of the Brownback administration against donating in the 2012 general election to moderate Republicans or Democrats.

To defy the governor on this point places lobbyists at risk of backlash in the 2013 session of the Legislature, Hensley said.

"I heard directly from lobbyists," Hensley said. "There was a threat, basically, that you want your particular program to pass, back off giving to the opposition."

Clay Barker, executive director of the Kansas Republican Party, said political races routinely featured private, strategic discussions about where to invest. He wasn't aware of anyone making all-or-nothing appeals to lobbyists.

"I heard people hypothesizing about that," Barker said.

Jason Perkey, executive director of the state Democratic Party, said a more exclusive pay-to-play system of policy development would reward the wealthy at expense of other Kansans.

"That's politics at its worst," Perkey said. "We should be building partnerships, not pawns."

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Well, All of you that voted for Brownback, hope you are happy, that he is destroying the State of Kansas. I am sure the Koch brothers were there. It is a shame that it has come to the elections that are bought by money, instead of voted in by the people. Even if you are a republican, you better be one of the ones on Brownback side.

14 conservative Brownbacked Republicans running for the Kansas Senate. Here we have the list of candidates that must be defeated by the majority of rational Kansas citizens to maintain a modicum of diplomacy in the Kansas legislature because the Kansas House is full of rabid extremists already.

You do know how administer, right? It means: "to apply as a remedy", right!
Could you get your rich buddies to cut checks to help THIS program ?
"Kansas Main Street provided member communities with technical guidance, periodic training in such areas as fundraising and historic preservation, and zero-interest matching loans of up to $20,000 to help small businesses under a program called Incentives Without Walls."
"Bob Carlson, executive director of Holton Main Street in northeastern Kansas, said the investments kept some small towns from drying up commercially."
“It hurts, not only that they chose to shut down the Kansas Main Street program, but the way in which they did it,” Carlson said.
It would be a great opportunity to bring ALL Kansans together and advocate for Kansas "the Obama way"!
In the photo . . . is that the devil looking over your right shoulder?
Oops! It's the mikey, mugging for the camera!
Oh-oh . . . sometimes the picture changes. Guess somebody thinks the devil should get off sam's shoulder.

Glad to see that Dick Barta wasn't on this list. He is the independent voice we need in the Kansas Senate. Laura Kelly is bought and paid for by out of state unions and Obama/Sebelius supporters in Washington.

Jake LaTurner hardly needs more of the "elite" money, his primary was won by the Crosslands. His Democratic opponent is a place holder who got stuck trying to campaign without any money and no intention of raising any. Guess he needs to feather his nest for the next election when he will most definitely have a much stronger opponent.

Republican primary voters last week guaranteed there will be big changes when the Legislature returns to Topeka in January — changes that could range from how the state picks judges to how your children are educated, to how close you can sit to a stripper.

It was great when EXTREME LIBERAL SEBELIUS was raising money for the LIBERAL DEMS from Las Vegas casinos and Wichita abortionists by the tens of thousands of dollars from single individuals for her and other LIBERAL DEMOCRAT PACS so she could hand it out to her LIBERAL FRIENDS like WAGNON and HENSLEY. When the shoe is on the other foot the LIBERALS want to whine. Hensley is great at making wild unfounded claims, why not make him provide the source for his statements?

Our government has worked well for well over 200 years because we have had a variety of representatives and if you chose to have your government controlled by one party you are choosing to give up the kind of government that represents what has made our country so great.

It doesn't really matter that you think one way is better what matters is that all ways gets equal consideration and become part and partial to how things get worked out.

Take head because a one party government cannot be trusted (regardless of which party it is) and if you help bring that about you are fooling yourself and you will get bitten and so will your friends, neighbors, children and relatives and you really don't want that to happen, be you conservative, liberal or independent.

SO BE WISE AND VOTE A STRAIGHT DEMOCRAT TICKET or if you cannot bring yourself to do that then at least do not vote for a republican or just stay home and don't vote like the 800,000+ Kansans that didn't vote in the last election.

Wake up!
You cannot possibly think this is sour grapes on the Democrats part, Republicans run this state. The Democrats quoted are trying to give fair warning. Brownback is running our state into the ground and Republican voters continue to follow blindly. Unless, you are part of the ultra rich elite you will suffer alongside ALL citizens of Kansas. This is not a party issue. This is a mad man on a mission and Kansas is his stepping-stone. Brownback will be long gone and the state of Kansas is going to be an absolute mess. Just wait until 2013. Big changes are coming for Medicaid and the state is nowhere near prepared. Kansas cannot even issue license plates in a timely and efficient manner, so the Medicaid changes are going to have state workers heads' exploding. After being a lifelong resident of this state, I am seriously considering moving my family out of state because I refuse to pay for the damage this man will cause on his way to Washington. Brownback is not my candidate and I cannot stand the ignorance of Republican voters any longer. Not all of you are wealthy so knock off the superior attitudes. Your hard-earned money will be bailing this state out, just like everyone else. Better yet, just bend over and get Brown backed! You deserve everything coming your way!

American Heritage Dictionary definition of fascism: "...a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

No matter what party you are in, you will have to raise mucho dinero to even run. Some of that money now comes from the base and, increasingly, more and more comes from private interests: firms, corporations, monopolies, trans-nationals, and millionaires and billionaires.

All those private interests are interested in legislation that benefits them. Some of those interests -- like the Kochs -- would like control of government because they are "libertarian" activists or have a religious agenda and so on.

Let's say you run for office and do the phone-work to get your funds (like both Mitt and Barack are doing). The competition here is to see who raises the most money, which, in the Citizens United era, means more money than has ever been spent on elections, some of it secret and some of it even from foreign donors (illegal, but the money gets laundered).

You walk into your office in the Capitol and you are greeted by an army of lobbyists who will be selling you on their company and making promises ("pay to play"). If you are president, you will install your "picks" from, for instance, Goldman-Sachs, and installing them in powerful positions. Most of the people you see every day in the Capitol will be millionaires, including the lobbyists.

I could go on, but you will skip this. The point: This is not any longer taxation with representation.

When you see a politician saying "Less taxes on the rich," what they are effectively saying is, "I was paid to say this. I am being supported, so I will do this." It is not about paying down the debt, or creating jobs, or fixing the infrastructure, or protecting the public, or shoring up public trusts, and so on. It is about money.

This system is now toxic and it tends to corruption, even of good people, because they have to work in it. Your voice is shrinking daily. Time to revamp the whole system and separate the poison of private money running a public trust -- your government. So, yeah, beware.

Newsflash, there are thousands if not tens of thousands of us in Kansas that are RIGHT WING CONSERVATIVES. And I mean to the RIGHT. Governor Brownback is supporting us. We applaud this, I hope we have 100% conservatives representing us. I will say it again, if you don't like what we stand for, move to another State. All you do is complain about jobs, Obamacare, Koch industries, the bunyon on your toe, on and on and on...... Please, move or shut up already....... May the God of this universe completely have His way with this State and use Godly men and women of Kansas to do so. Amen!!!!

Are you sure? The "Kansas" way? More accurately that should have said "Advocate the Brownback way." Why seperate the party in the original statement since Sontag specifically used Obama in that statement? Sorry...Brownback does not accurately represent the Kansas way by bullying. That is not leadership.

"To defy the governor on this point places lobbyists at risk of backlash in the 2013 session of the Legislature, Hensley said."